


charged with electric gestures

by horchatita394



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3391502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horchatita394/pseuds/horchatita394
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are 7, 295, 662, 904 people on the planet, and just as many ways to say I love you.</p><p>This isn’t one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	charged with electric gestures

**Author's Note:**

> I really had to write this scene out before I wrote anything else for this pairing, so I did.

There are 7, 295, 662, 904 people on the planet, and just as many ways to say I love you.

Connor notices the shiny new stack of books that appear on Oliver’s bedside table (even though Connor hasn’t been sleeping over, just getting Oliver’s glasses from the dresser), and the not-well-hidden tabs on his laptop during their Jane Austen marathon, and the not-at-all-subtle pamphlets in the bathroom.

He sees Oliver turn the heating up as soon as he lets him in the door, sees him serve food in bowls on the couch when it’s much better suited for plates and flat surfaces, and there are definitely more throw pillows on that couch now than there were two weeks ago.

There are approximately 7, 295, 662, 904 ways to say I love you.

“Sam Keating is dead.”

This isn’t one of them.

Connor rolls his shoulders, reaching for the back of his own neck like it’ll keep him together. “So you’ve heard.”

“Yeah,” Oliver says as he swings a TV remote from one hand to another, his head hanging as his body curls into itself. “I own a TV that I actually have time to watch.”

He laughs in a manner Laurel has informed him is ‘schizoid’ and ‘hysterical’. “Crazy isn’t it? Everything is pretty insane at the office-”

Oliver’s head snaps up, his body still curled like he can protect his chest from Connor’s general presence. “You know what’s funny?”

He laughs again; it sounds terrifying to his own ears. “Not this, I imagine.”

“No it ... it is. I mean how much it all makes sense. Because, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been reading up.”

 _Are you dehydrated? Do you have headaches? Have you deleted your dealer from your contacts?_ Yeah, Connor has noticed just how much Oliver has been reading. He’d meant to read up too, put on a convincing act. But murder, you know, who has the time?

 “I’m not,” he says rather uselessly at this point. “I’m not an addict.”

“No, just covering for your homicidal boss.” He curls up further, impossibly. The Spherical Oliver. Olive Oliver, even. “Oh God-“

He rocks himself and gags (maybe) or sobs (most definitely) very softly.

“No! She didn’t, I’m – I wasn’t …” Connor is kneeling, not like a restroom blowjob (5 weeks and counting) but like a Church pew prayer (16 years, 4 months).

Oliver looks up at him like the answer is written on his nose and he just can’t make it out. “You’re not going to try to tell me this is a whole fucked up coincidence are you because-“

He’s a breath away from him, yes, but who could kiss him now? Who could touch him? Maybe he’s tainted by this in a way he hasn’t been by a thousand random hook-ups. What’s a whore to a murderer, really? “No. No I’m not but, it’s better that you don’t know.”

“The less I know the better? You do know that’s what people get told in mob movies before they get wacked right? I –“  he breathes in deeply like he might dive to the darkest depths, like he knows he will. “I deserve the truth Connor, damn it you owe me the truth.”

“I do, I know. But I also know what happens when you know too much. I mean, at the very least you’ll get dragged into this and I can’t – I’m sorry. I’m sorry I came here that night, I’m sorry I kept coming back. I’m sorry that I can’t,” the words catch in his throat; it’s like a Heimlich getting them out. “Can’t stay away from you.”

In front of him Oliver uncurls and stands. God, he looks tall. Maybe Connor just feels small. “What did you do Connor? “

“You don’t want to know _,_ ” he says. He doesn’t say, _I can see you in your stupidly neat skinny ties getting dragged down into trials and interrogations and I don’t want you to know._

“God damn it, I am so far past what I want. I didn’t want to be fucked for information, I didn’t want to be cheated on, I didn’t want to want you so much that I would take you back from that, take you back when I thought you were some on the edge junkie, like I have some kind of abused-spouse syndrome. I don’t want to fucking love you Connor. It’s a shit deal, but I do. So tell me what the hell you did.”

Oliver steeples his fingers and holds them under his chin as he listens and nods. He doesn’t gasp or interject his horror. He asks not _how could you? why would you? who are you?_ but instead _who knows? do you trust them? who saw you?_ and nods some more.

Connor is still on his knees, still in a manner of supplication and not – as is usual – quick and dirty meaningless pleasure. “You aren’t… why aren’t you?”

“Screaming? Freaking out? Why isn’t the straight-edge IT nerd losing it? I have more backbone than that Connor.”

“You lost your shit over drug addiction.”

“Drug addiction could kill you,” Oliver hisses as if now, just now, someone might overhear. “This just –“

“Killed someone else?”

Their laughter, now mixing, is more terrified than terrifying.

“He did it, didn’t he?” Oliver whispers. “The girl in the water tank?”

“Yeah.” Connor leans up on his knees, rests his hands on Oliver’s like he’s been promised a gift. Absolution, from the holiest place his sinning hands still dare to touch, cling to, and claim. “Yeah he did.”

Days later the pamphlets and WebMD tabs are gone, evenly replaced by a wide and unfocused selection from the Middleton Library of Law and mystery novels. It all looks suspicious to his guilty mind, but Oliver shrugs, only shrugs.

There are approximately 7, 295, 662, 904 ways to say I love you.

“Not that suspicious if you think about it,” Oliver says, without glancing up at him as he flips through an updated penal code, “My boyfriend’s in law.”

7, 295, 662, 905 to be exact.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Gracias Gabe (flamesofatimelord) you obnoxious soundboard, I love you, I will whine at you every step of this series.


End file.
